After a breakaway group consecrated bishops without the pope’s consent, the Vatican declared Thursday that the Society of St. Pius X is in schism with the Catholic Church, excommunicating its bishops and priests and warning adherents that they could be punished. 

The Society of St. Pius X, known by the acronym SSPX, has several SSPX chapels in North Idaho. 

More than 600 families attend Immaculate Conception Church in Post Falls, which is served by priests from SSPX, according to the church’s website. Nearly 200 students attend Immaculate Conception Academy, an all-boys private school operated by the church. 

Immaculate Conception declined to comment on the Vatican’s decision Thursday, instead directing inquiries to the Regina Coeli House in Missouri, SSPX’s U.S. headquarters. 

A communications director for SSPX did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday on the decision and its implications for those who attend churches associated with the society. 

Saint Dominic Chapel in Post Falls and Saint Joseph Mission in St. Maries are also associated with SSPX. 

The decree against SSPX came a day after thousands of worshipers gathered at the society’s seminary in Econe, Switzerland, for the consecration of four new bishops, in defiance of Pope Leo XIV. 

The pope penned a letter Tuesday urging the society to call off its plan to consecrate new bishops without his consent, calling the move a “sin of extreme gravity.” 

“I plead with you and ask you with all my heart: please turn back!” Leo wrote to the Rev. Davide Pagliarani, the superior of the Society of St. Pius X. 

The consecration went ahead. 

“The Society sincerely regrets that, owing to exceptional circumstances, these consecrations had to be conferred without the authorization of the Holy Father,” said a statement published July 1 on SSPX’s website, following the ceremony. 

The Society of St. Pius X was founded in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council of the '60s, which revolutionized the Catholic Church’s relations with other religions and allowed Mass to be celebrated in languages other than Latin. 

SSPX celebrates the ancient Latin Mass and opposes the church’s modernizing reforms. 

“The priest exists to give the sacraments as they have always been given,” reads the Immaculate Conception Church website. “The faithful have the right to ask for them as such. The priory established in Post Falls exists to make available to the faithful the Catholic Mass and sacraments in all their fullness. It exists to give divine life to their souls, which Christ came on earth to give.”   

In 1988, SSPX Founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without the pope’s consent, resulting in the excommunication of Lefebvre and the four bishops. Though the Vatican lifted the excommunications in 2009, SSPX had no standing in the church and is now declared to be in schism. 

The excommunication applies to all SSPX priests, who number about 750, and invalidates the sacraments of confession and marriage that they administer. 

The Vatican also warned the faithful to stop attending SSPX Masses, stating that “those who adhere formally” to the society “are to be considered schismatic and excommunicated.” 

“The church, as a caring mother, will welcome with sincere affection and lively solicitude all those who wish to return to full communion,” said a statement published by the Vatican.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.